The United States and South Korea began their biggest combined military training in years Monday as they heighten their defence posture against the growing North Korean nuclear threat.
The drills could draw an angry response from North Korea, which has dialed up its weapons testing activity to a record pace this year while repeatedly threatening conflicts with Seoul and Washington amid a prolonged stalemate in diplomacy.The Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises will continue through Sept. 1 in South Korea and include field exercises involving aircraft, warships, tanks and potentially tens of thousands of troops.
The allies will also train for drone attacks and other new developments in warfare shown during Russia's war on Ukraine and practice joint military-civilian responses to attacks on seaports, airports and major industrial facilities such as semiconductor factories. South Korea's military has not revealed the number of South Korean and U.S. troops participating in Ulchi Freedom Shield, but has portrayed the training as a message of strength. Seoul's Defence Ministry said last week that Ulchi Freedom Shield "normalizes" large-scale training and field exercises between the allies to help bolster their alliance and strengthen their defence posture against the evolving North Korean threat.
The drills follow North Korea's dismissal last week of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's "audacious" proposal of economic benefits in exchange for denuclearization steps, accusing Seoul of recycling proposals Pyongyang has long rejected. She also ridiculed U.S.-South Korean military capabilities for monitoring the North's missile activity, insisting that the South misread the launch site of the North's latest missile tests on Wednesday last week, hours before Yoon used a news conference to urge Pyongyang to return to diplomacy.
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